All about Amazons!

The day before yesterday I played a game called Smallworld with my girlfriend and a good friend of mine who brought the game. It was a great experience, Games Magazine 2010 game of the year winner. The version we played was on Ipad (I don't like Apple's products), and my friend said it was even better in board game version, which it originally was designed to be.

Anyway, the game has several different "races" (more like species, like they should always be called in fantasy and science fiction settings, since the "races" are so different they cannot be of the same species), and one of them is Amazons.

This (A) is the Amazon picture from the game. B is a figure made of the character, which can be purchased on the game's official website.

I don't have much good to say about this character. And not even talking about archery yet! The baby-faced sex-Amazon has the kind of Poison Ivy-esque "clothing" that only holds on her body with the Holy Spirit, which may explain the visual connection with Eve of Paradise. No, boots and one bracer are not clothes. And neither are some strategically placed tree leaves. She has some kind of "tribal" tattoos or warpaint on her body, but also heavy mascara, pink eyeshadow and red lipstick. Of course Amazons didn't really exist outside ancient mythology, but this is not the style any woman has ever dressed herself. Especially for battle!

How far have we come from the original source of Amazons from Greek mythology?
This is a real image of an Amazon (as "real" as it can be of a mythical character):

Herakles (Hercules in Latin) here is fighting with an Amazon queen Adromakhe (NOT the wife of Hektor of Ilion (Troy)). The Amazon is clad in elaborately embroidered khiton (a Greek tunic), bears a helmet, greaves (shin armour), shield, spear and sword. Most of the pictures of Amazons show them fully dressed in robes, tunics and trousers. In fact after this early period of vase painting which this image represents, Greeks tended to portray Amazons in Persian garb. That's because Persia was their mortal enemy, and represents barbarism in Greek minds (which it really was not, but that's propaganda). Amazons also represents barbarism and the whole idea of women fighting against men was a blasphemy to the Greeks, a nation of great inventors and military geniuses, but also of probably the biggest gynophobia (fear of women, chauvinism) of any advanced civilization. Thus, Amazons were dressed in Persian style headdresses, long sleeved tunics and even trousers, such barbarian clothes Greeks would have never used. And trousers were seen as feminine! How have times changed.

A few millenniae later some sweaty nerd boys in their basements read about Amazons as well as other mythological stuff, and incorporate them in their role-playing games. They probably didn't have pictures of Greek vase paintings, since internet was not in use yet, and with their longing of women, they created the modern charcter of Amazons, exotic ultra-sexual nation of fighting females. They were not man-haters and hated by men anymore, now they become just targets of lust. How many times have male game designers / moviemakers / comic draughtsmen justified their Amazons (used here as a synonym for all female fighters) as being strong and dangerous opponents to any man, while at the same time their costume choices tell a wholly different approach of just trying to please teenage male audience.

The introduction text for the Amazon figure in the Smallworld game official webstore tells a lot:

“Strong and fearless... beautiful and exotic... the Amazon is deadly accurate with her favorite weapon, the bow and arrow. Definitely not a foe to encounter in the dark! Winner of the 2009 popularity context as the most beloved Small World character, this Amazon will be a natural fit at the top of your game shelf!
The Amazon figure is 21 cm tall.
Note that the Amazon figure is mildly NSFW. If you, or your family, are offended by partial nudity, you should not view or purchase the Amazon.”

And why is that every Amazon/female warrior uses bows nowadays? Archery is not easier than sword fighting for instance. It does require a great amount of strength and skills. Not to say that women couldn't be strong and skilled warriors, just trying to defend archery, since it seems to be so misunderstood these days.

And now we finally get to the archery mistakes:

A. Game picture:

1. This bow doesn't get thinner at all towards the ends of it. How is it supposed to bend? Completely ridiculous bow which doesn't work. Great.
2. This is like reverse sideways shooting. Maybe the maker of this picture had a hard time (pun intended) fitting the bow into the small square tile which shows in the game. Anyway, the bow is way too tilted. The fistmele is also too big.
3. What is this position of arrow?!? It's not even on the bow grabbing fist! It looks nothing else than dropping. It should be on the other side of the bow, so this wouldn't happen.
4. Maybe the arrow is dropping because it has a way too large arrowtip. That wouldn't fly very far. Stop drawing spear heads on arrows, please. An arrowtip should not be much bigger than the last bone of your thumb.
5. The arrow doesn't have fletching at all. At least none can be seen here. If there is something, it's too small and too close to the nock of the arrow.
6. Another mistake inside the same circle, what is this style of drawing the string with two fingers, and even keeping the pinky straight? We're not in Versailles you know? Grab it with three fingers in Mediterranean style. That grip is more powerful, and power you will need to bend that inlexible bow.
7. The arrow should be drawn about here. It's not anywhere near the correct place in this picture. The makers of these kinds of pictures always want to show the face of the woman so badly taht they just can't draw the arrow near the mouth of the archer where it should be. This Amazon has a very very poor aim.
8. Where are all the other arrows? Don't tell me she only has one.

B. Figure:

1.  The figure is somewhat better in the manner of archery form than the original drawing, but this has got a series of new mistakes. The arrow is again on the wrong side of the bow.
2. The arrowtip is still too large and heavy.
3. No quiver to be found here either.
4. This white arrow shows the correct nocking point for the arrow on the bowstring. Now it's nocked too high. At the last picture is was nocked too low.
5. The last picture shows quite clearly how the bowstring touches the forehead and left breast of the Amazon, and bends. It's not good. The original myth of Amazons is that they supposedly burnt the mammary glands of the left breast of their prepubescent daughters before their breast started to grow, so that the left breast wouldn't infere with a bowstring. They even got their national name from this, "a" = without, "mazon" = breast (in Greek). This is of course not true. Not only because Amazons as a nation didn't exist (there were some women warriors in ancient times, mainly in steppe peoples, like Scythians), but because no women archer would have to do that. The breasts have to be exceptionally large in order to disturb archery, and for them to be that large a woman has to be very fat, which women were not back at the ancient times. This Amazon figure although draws too much, which results in the bowstring to touch her forehead and breast. They have enlargened her bust from the original picture though.
6. She doesn't even hold the bowstring! The bowstring is not even at the nock of the arrow! This is impossible. The string is only back of the fletching, which is made of feathers, which would of course not hold the string back there.
7. Again the two finger grip, but what is she even gripping, since the string isn't in her hand?
8. The fletching is big enough, but it's too far back and has only two plumes instead of three. An arrow will fly even without fletching at all, but the purpose of those feathers is to give the arrow a spin (life rifling gives to a bullet) so that the arrow will fly more accurately. Three feathers are needed for that.
9. What is this bulge in the arrow? They may have thought to give the arrow some more charcter, but this ball really just hinder the arrows flight by hitting the bow's arc while it flies besides it.

Good:
Hmm... nothing except at the figure, the position of arms and bow is correct, and she has got a bracer in left arm only.
The game Smallworld is great though, buy it, play it, enjoy it! I command you.

Turok, worst of archers

Turok, son of stone is a native American comic/animation/videogame character who uses his bow to battle dinosaurs. Sounds awesome right? This panel from a comic (or a frame from animation?) tells another story. Turok must be both mentally and physically handicapped, since he cannot even hold a bow right. Everything is so wrong in this picture I don't know where to start!

But let's begin, with the mistakes:

1. He's depicted left handed here, when he's really not. A common mistake.
2. The lines from both hands and from the arrow should be parallel. Now they are not anywhere near where they should be. This form wastes the drawing energy of the arm and makes the shot less powerful. It's also more tiring for the archer.
3. The bowstring should, shall and will never ever go OVER the bow arm!!! How is this so hard to get right?!? Stop drawing it like this, it's completely impossible to shoot like that! And don't you see how ridiculously stupid it looks.
4. The former mistake would not happen ever if people would also stop drawing people shooting sideways. It's not cool! It's stupid, it makes the shot less powerful since the archer cannot draw the bow with full force, because the bowstring contacts with the archers body. Nobody shot like that ever.
5. The arrow should be placed as near the middle of the bowstring as possible. It's not anywhere near the middle in this picture. The white arrow shows the correct place.
6. How much this arrow head would weight? It would not fly anywhere with that stone on it's head. Better use that as a mace or something. Arrowheads were small, like the size of the tip of your finger, not your whole fist.
7. That bow does not bend! Bows do bend! They are made of wood! Even when they are made of metal (very very rarely) they bend. If they don't bend and only the bowstring stretches, that's not a bow, it's a slingshot. And not nearly as powerful than a bow. For Manitou's sake, how is this so hard to understand?!?
8. This hand is not holding the arrow or the bowstring. Given the line of the string, the hand is in completely wrong position. It just wouldn't work.
9. The arrow should be positioned near the hand holding the bow, not far away. That makes aiming more difficult in this picture.
10. Arrows weren't held in a back quiver since they are hard and slow to get from there. Quivers were worn hanging from a waist belt.
11. Turok here not only has a back quiver, but it's on the wrong shoulder if he's shooting left handed, which he is now. How he's supposed to get the arrows from behind his head?

Good? Hahahahaha, not!
If the word "comic" is meant to mean laughably bad, then the maker of this picture has succeeded, otherwise he should change his career. I heard that the streets could use some more people to wipe them clean.

Swaggety swag peasant bowman

A male archer for a while. Looking quite swaggish, even though I hate the word swag. Can't believe I'm even using it! Anyway, to the mistakes:

1. This is the most imbalanced bow i've ever seen! It is true that in kyudo, Japanese archery, people use asymmetrical bows, which' upper limb is longer than the lower limb, but they are not nearly this asymmetrical. This is really too much. The lower part of this longbow sized recurve is so small compared to the upper part that it makes shooting with this device a completely impractical job.
2. The bow is also very unusual in shape. And when I say unusual, I really mean bad design. It is a recurve bow, but it curves here and there, has a weird angle just above the handgrip, and that angle goes in wrong direction. It's also pretty ugly altogether.
3. Fistmele, the distance between the bows arc and string is a bit too big.
4. Where is the quiver for arrows? No arrows at all, what's he going to shoot then?
5. Now, these asymmetrical bows were only used by samurais, and samurais were mainly horse archers (yes, sword was only a secondary weapon to them). They used asymmetrical bows (hankyu and daikyu) because they could then more easily aim at low targets and the bows lower limb wouldn't contact with the horse, but the bow was at the same time powerful enough since it was longer at the upper limb. The main problem here is that this man is wearing those oh-so-fabulous baggy pants which girls nowadays seem to love on men. And it is impossible to ride with that kind of impractical lower body garment. So this archer is using a cavalry bow, but cannot ride.